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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Pint Glasses for Dad

While trying to think of something Abe could make his dad for Father's Day, I realized that Noah and his brother-in-law both collect pint glasses. I've been wanting to try these glass markers, but they weren't available online and were sold out at Michael's, so I picked up some of these markers that I found at Joann instead. I had a bunch of coupons so I was able to get them all for 40-50% off - not a bad deal - and I ordered a case of plain pint glasses from Amazon.

My nieces and nephews enjoyed decorating glasses for their dad, but Abe was a little young for it. He mostly colored on his hands, so I helped him with this handprint glass. He added a few red squiggles when we were done. I expected the finished glasses to turn out awesome, and they did...until I washed them. The directions said to let the glasses sit for 4 hours before baking them at 325⁰ F for 30 minutes. After they were baked and cool, I ran them through the dishwasher to remove fingerprints. That's when I noticed that parts of their drawings had washed away!

I'm not entirely sure my oven heats properly, so maybe I didn't bake them at a high enough temperature. Or maybe the kids' fingerprints on the glass interfered with the markers adhering properly...all the glasses were washed and cleaned with rubbing alcohol before we started.

I was able to fix Abe's glass by retracing his handprint (haven't run it through the dishwasher yet so we'll see what happens when I do). The black marker didn't wash off at all, which is ironic because that one was the brand I was originally looking for.

My nephew, who is a year older than Abe, made this great scribble glass. It only took him a few minutes but he sure had fun!

The older kids (ages 4 - 12) took more time drawing pictures, writing messages, and just thinking up things that their dad would enjoy. (This glass was done by my 4 year old niece.) It'd be a fun project to do with Abe every year if I can figure out what went wrong.

Has anyone else tried these markers? Did you have a similar experience? Any tips or tricks for making these permanent and dishwasher safe like they're supposed to be?